Research & Forecasts

Generally girls lose interest in STEM careers as they get older. But, according to a new study, small changes at school and at home can have a profound impact on how girls perceive STEM careers, how confident they feel in class and how likely they are to pursue STEM academically and into their careers.

More than nine in 10 respondents to a new survey consider the world a better place because of science. Almost eight in 10 consider the best days of science still to come. And two-thirds are excited about the impact of science on society in the future.

In spite of research showing that school funding leads to better outcomes for students during their school years and afterward, a new report from the Education Law Center and Rutgers University's Graduate School of Education finds dramatic unevenness among education funding across states. New York and Alaska, for example, spend more than 2.5 times what Arizona and Idaho spend. There's been no improvement since the end of the "great recession" in those states that don't provide additional funding to districts with high student poverty.

Four in 10 of the top websites pose dangers to their visitors. According to cybersecurity vendor Menlo Security, out of the top 100,000 websites as ranked by Alexa, 42 percent are "risky." A risky website is any site where either the homepage or an associated background site is running vulnerable software; the site is known to distribute malware or launch attacks; or the site has already suffered a security breach in the past 12 months.

Just how much does it cost to set up a personalized learning plan for an entire school, and is it really sustainable? Could a typical school budget cover the expense — and what would happen if budget cuts had to be made?

In a new study, middle schoolers did better with science lessons when they could learn online, watching videos, playing educational games, running virtual experiments and collaborating with classmates.

We stare at our phones all the time not because the devices themselves are addictive, but because we're driven to socialize, according to a recent literature review by researchers at McGill University.

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Whitepapers

Institutions are starting to apply data-intensive strategies in almost every facet of their work. Data analytics and other advanced IT tools give education IT professionals powerful new ways to support student achievement and engagement. Video is playing a greater role in instruction, and large datasets have become a staple. The more a institutions capitalizes on data, the greater the demand this data usage places on its IT infrastructure.
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